trees used as firewood for cooking.
Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow in Africa, the largest lake in the Chad Basin. It is located mainly in the far West of Chad, sharing a border with northeastern Nigeria. It is economically important, providing water to over 68 million people living in four countries surrounding it (Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria) on the edge of the Sahara Desert. Despite the high levels of evaporation, the lake is fresh water.
She stated that this is adversely affecting the livelihood of those whose economic activities are directly linked to it.
“So he has directed that we should go and look at the report that was submitted in 1920 about how to prevent Lake Chad from drying up, so that the communities around even border communities including the countries benefitting from activities of fishermen and livelihood based on Lake Chad are not affected.
Mede said currently over 43 per cent of Nigerians is affected by the effect of desertification and this also continues to breed conflict between the herdsmen and farmers because of forced migration, moving away from the dessert to the South West where they can get grass to feed the animals.
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“The President has directed that to reduce the rate at which wood is being cut down for fuel for cooking we should look at promoting the use of LPG especially in the cities, that in the villages it will be difficult.
On the clean cook stove initiative the, permanent secretary said the contractor had taken the government to court seeking for an injunction to prevent government from terminating the contract.
The immediate past administration had less than 72 hours to hand over, flagged off the distribution of N5 billion clean cooking stoves for rural women.
The clean stove initiative was launched by former Vice President Namadi Sambo, in the Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja. He had said the stoves would reduce desertification in the country and also boost job creation and reduce smoke-related diseases.
However, the Federal Ministry of Environment terminated the contract for the project.
“We will go there and argue our case, the government will go, we have briefed the attorney-general’s office. We will present our case the issue that led to the contractor taking us to court, it will be explained and the court will decide” she told journalists at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday.